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Note: This is a word-for-word transcript of an oral lecture and has not been edited to be read as a standalone text. Often the Rav’s tone, pauses, and vocal inflections impart meaning not discernable in the written version. The transcript is provided to accompany the audio lectures in order to help the listener catch every word.

Transcript: Will you be so kind and just open up this Guide, Chapter 1, the last paragraph. We will refer to it pretty soon. Chapter 1, the last paragraph. It’s page 14. Page 14, last paragraph. It is “Man’s distinction consists in a property…” It’s page 14, last paragraph, chapter 1, where it discusses the concept of tzelem, of the image of God, that man was created in the image of God.

Can we start now? Now, I have asked the participants through Dr. Feldman to submit to me any problem with which they are concerned with regard to social service, and I’ll try to weave this problem into my lectures. I cannot discuss problems separately, because this would be not a philosophical presentation, but just a sermon. I’m not out to preach here, to give a philosophical sermon. So in the course of the lectures, I’ll take up problems of social service. But don’t expect me just to deal with them exclusively. I cannot do that. I’m not a social worker, and to present problems, I mean isolated problems, would not serve the purpose. You wouldn’t get a picture of Jewish thought with regard to man.

Now, what we are going to discuss today and the next lecture and the following lectures is the concept of the personality in Jewish thought. […] The last two lectures we devoted more to the problem of methodology, how to approach it. Should – and again, I’ll follow my method of trying to integrate the Jewish idea into the general Occidental philosophy of man.

Three approaches to man

Should we inquire of a modern historian of philosophy, or of any educated person well acquainted with the history of ideas, what he understands by the word man – if he says man, what does he understand by it? – he would immediately advise us about the basic controversy concerning the destiny and essence of this strange being. By the sheer force of associative thinking, he would at once refer to three disparate, anthropological, philosophical viewpoints.

First, the biblical – and by that, modern man understands the Judeo-Christian tradition, because actually the fathers of the Christian church adopted the biblical interpretation of man. Of course, they gave it their own slant, so to say, but basically in its fundamentals, the Christian interpretation of man is biblical. [Second,] the classical Greek-Roman approach to man, and of course, [third,] the modern, empirical-scientific approach to man.

Pressed for further elucidation – if this historian should be pressed for further elucidation of his cryptic statement, and the clear formulation of these irreconcilable concepts of man to which he referred, he would explain his reference in the following manner. Of course, he would say the three anthropologists differ in their basic interpretation and evaluation of man, and any attempt, therefore, to merge either all or at least two of them into a single philosophical doctrine of man would be an idle gesture. However, he would continue to explain to us [that] the discrepancy between the concepts of man dating back to antiquity – it means the biblical and the classical Greek – is by far not as wide as the gap separating these two doctrines, the classical and the biblical, from the empirico-scientific one. There is a wide gap separating the classical Greek and the Judaic-Christian from the empirico-scientific one.

Man as distinct from nature

As a matter of fact, he would say we may speak of some degree of affinity and even commensurability between the biblical and the classical anthropologies. While – both traditions, the classical and the biblical, are simply incommensurate with the empirical scientific. I’m trying to quote an imaginary historian, a philosopher, how he would react, respond to such a problem. Both, he would say, are united, the classical and the biblical, in opposition to the scientific approach to man. They, the biblical and the classical traditions, set man apart from other forms of organic life, and here is the main discrepancy. Both the Greeks and the Jews set man apart from other forms of organic life. The world of man, the classical and the biblical tradition would say, these anthropologists maintain, is incongruous with that of the animal and plant. Notwithstanding the fact that all three groups – it means man, animal and plant – all three groups of organic life are governed alike by kindred, rigid, natural processes, and structural developmental patterns, man constitutes a separate entity as a strange being who encounters the kingdom of nature, of which he is physically an integral part – he encounters this kingdom in full awareness of his uniqueness and surveys it boldly from a distance. Man can, so to say, turn around, encounter or face nature as a stranger, as an outsider, while the animal or the plant can’t do that. I can turn around – not march with nature, just in one direction, but suddenly stop – emerge from my immediacy and unbroken life functions, turn around and look at nature, not as a natural being, as an outsider, as a judge, as an arbiter, as someone who intervenes in nature from the outside.

Man is finite, of course, corporeal, of course, yet different. He is not a particular kind of animal, but he is something else. This is basic in both, in the classical and biblical tradition. The empirical scientific tradition would say man is an animal, an intelligent animal, with more aptitudes, with more capabilities, and certain skills which the animal doesn’t possess, or at least the skills were more developed by man, but he is a peculiar kind of animal, while the Greeks and the Jews will say man is not an animal. Man encounters the animal, the plant, as a separate, different, unique being. This is the basic difference.

And I want you to understand, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. We may accept the theory of evolution and say that man is different, and we may reject the theory of evolution and accept the philosophical viewpoint of the positivistic scientific viewpoint that man is a peculiar kind of animal. How man emerged, whether through a process of evolution, out of the ape and lower forms of organic life, or he emerged in a peculiar manner, unknown to us, is not important. This is not the problem; it’s not the problem of evolution versus creation. That’s what I want to impress upon your minds. It’s not the controversy of evolution versus creation. The Greeks didn’t believe in creation either. But it’s a problem – it’s more a, I would say, philosophical problem – what is the essence of man? Is he an intelligent animal, or he is something different? That’s all. How his emergence took place, whether through evolution, from the lower forms of organic life, or there was a separate, independent emergence of man – this has nothing to do with our problem. So a Jew can accept evolution but still say – I’m not discussing now the problem of evolution from a religious viewpoint – but a Jew can accept evolution and still say man is different, regardless [of] how he emerged into the, so to say, arena. He can also reject evolution and say that man is a peculiar kind of animal.

He is rather, man, a singular being. However, our narrator would say, while the prophetic, I mean the biblical, and classical doctrines stress the autonomy of man, his unlikeness to and alienation from the world of nature – this was important; he’s an alien in the world of nature – they disagree as to the distinctive element in man that enables him to free himself from his naturalness and instinctive immediacy. They would say that – the prophetic and classical doctrines say – that man is distinct. What do they say? By what is he distinct? What makes him distinct? What is the criterion of distinction by which we judge man separately when we place him in a different dimension of existence, a different existential dimension? They would say as to that – what is the element which makes man distinct? The Greek and the biblical tradition disagree. They agree that man is distinct, but, however, what makes him distinct? What sets him apart from the kingdom of nature? What lends to him autonomy, uniqueness and singularity? As far as this is concerned, the Greek – the classical – and the biblical traditions part company and pursue their own philosophies. There is agreement in the basic question whether man is a distinct creature; there is disagreement as to what makes man distinct and singular. The Jewish and Greek schools of thought would suggest two different answers to this question. If we should formulate the question, not, what is man? – we already asked this question, what is man? – and the answer: man is different from any other natural being – I don’t mean as far as his body is concerned – as a personality. Now, the question: what bestows upon man the dignity of being distinct? What gives him autonomy and uniqueness and a separate status incommensurable with that of the animal and plant? They will give different answers. As a matter of fact, while parting company and disagreeing with respect to the problem of man as a unique being, the Greek tradition, in one respect, dovetails with the positivistic philosophy of man, with the scientific philosophy.

Man’s distinctness as a task

Now, let us see. We will come later to this problem, what makes man distinct, but I want to refer to something else, to some other aspect about which, again, the classical and the biblical traditions agree. Classical and biblical traditions also agree on another problem. They both say, man’s autonomy is something which was given to man not as a grant, as a finished product, or a factum, and all man has to do is to stretch out his hand and take possession of it, but man’s autonomy, man’s distinctness, was given to man not as a factum, not as a datum, but as an ideal, or a task. He can achieve it if he wants. However, if he doesn’t want it, he will remain part and parcel of brute, insensate, and meaningless nature. Man is provided with an opportunity, both the Greeks and the Jews – it’s remarkable sometimes how the Platonic philosophers, or the Stoics, have simply employed a language which was used by Jewish scholars, and I doubt very much whether they knew of the existence of each other. Certainly not. The Jewish scholars, the Platonic Greek scholars, were a world apart, and still it is the same vernacular which both use, the Greek scholars, particularly the Stoa, the Stoic philosophers, and the Talmudic Midrashic scholars. They say man is provided with an opportunity to establish his independence. It is not a datum of which man, reminiscent of the parasitic plant, which receives its food from another plant, has to avail himself, but his distinctness is a creation of his own. It’s his own creation. He can create his distinctness; he can remain in anonymity, in natural anonymity. It is not a datum, yes; [it] is not presented to him as a gift. The uniqueness of man manifests itself as a challenge, beckoning to and captivating, fascinating this strange being, and sometimes also tantalizing him – he tries to become distinct, he does not succeed, he fails in his effort. It’s a tantalizing experience many times, and sometimes a frustrating experience. But it’s nothing else but an ideal, a vision, rather than a ready-made transcendental endowment to be accepted. It is, if I should use the language Aristotle, a hyle. It means potentiality. It’s a potential endowment to be realized and concretized by man, but not an actuality.

The Greek philosophy and our traditions speak of man in terms of biological facticity – he’s a biological being – and also in categories of a higher life, dedicated to an ultimate goal, an existence in which the otherness and uniqueness of man is fully expressed – the classical schools – but, to them, the higher life is not given to them. He’s got to conquer it by hard work, and by dedicating his whole being to one idea, to become different. This is the duty, both in Greek philosophy and the Jewish tradition. Man should be different from the animal.

And perhaps if you ask me, what is halakhic Judaism? What is the main, the ultimate end of halakhic Judaism? I would say, the duty on the part of man to be different, or I would say, “different” is perhaps not the proper description – to be unique, to be singular, to be independent of nature, or, if you want to use [this term], to be free, because if one is unique he is free. If he lives a life of conformity, he cannot be free, so he is not unique.

The classical schools dealt with the problem of the nous. They thought that the element of distinction expressed itself in man’s rational capability, or in his intellectual capacity. When they spoke about nous poetikos and nous pathetikos; it means man is not given an active intellect; they used to say – Maimonides knows of that, if you’ll read the Guide – he’s not given an active intellect. He’s given a potential intellect, the nous pathetikos, a suffering intellect. It’s up to him […] to convert the nous [pathetikos] – it means the potential personality – into a nous poetikos, into an active intellect. It’s up to him. This is his job. This is his task. That’s what he, why he came into this world. The active and the passive intellects – man equals either the dwellers of the Olympus, according to Greek philosophy, or an animal in the woods, in the forest. He can remain imprisoned within a natural realm like any other creature.

This doctrine of dualism attained its most succinct formulation in the Stoa. Man, to the Stoa, was almost deified. The philosopher, the scholar, was an ideal type. But the philosopher, this was the extreme ideal type of the spiritual personality. On the other hand, the Stoics knew of brute man. Brute man means a man who did not actualize his potentialities. The philosopher means a man who attained the utmost, as far as actualization and concretization of his own personality, of himself.

Judaism also treats man as a biological entity. If there is a religion which was conscious and aware that man is a biological being, [it] is Judaism, because man is called in Judaism either adam – adam means made out [of], emerged out of earth, or basar, flesh. [Judaism] treats man as a biological entity, on the one hand, and as a spiritual being on the other hand – the discrepancy of man – but while the biological entity is created, given, it’s a datum, it’s a fact, the spiritual personality is an ideal. He can attain it, but if he refuses, he’s too lazy, or he doesn’t want, doesn’t attribute any importance [to it], he can never attain the status of being a spiritual personality.

Already in the Psalms we find this discrepancy. When David says, ki ereh shamecha ma’aseh etzbe’otecha, when I take a look, or I see, the heavens, thy work, yareach vekochavim asher konanta, the moon and the stars which are established; mah enosh ki tizkerenu, what is man that you should be mindful of?  uven adam ki tifkedenu, and the man of the earth, the son of the earth, that you take cognizance of? So it means, man is a natural being. But just, I mean –he continues, vatechasrehu me’at me’elokim, he’s just like God. There’s just a little difference between him and God – vechavod vehadar te’atereihu, He has surrounded him with majesty and dignity. So in one breath, the Psalmist speaks of man, a weak creature, who stands in awe, who stands actually in awe and is wonderstruck by the works of God, realizing his insignificance and his worthlessness. And he’s just ben adam, the son of earth, a natural being, like any animal in the forest, but also he’s equal to God, and he’s surrounded by majesty and dignity. And thus the Psalmist expresses the challenge which man encounters: either to lead an absurd existence – it means, as the medieval scholars used to say, an anonymous existence, because natural existence is anonymous – or to distinguish himself and equal God.

This is the challenge. Around this challenge, Jewish thought, particularly the halakhah, revolves. Man is faced with a challenge – not a biological challenge. Biological challenge is nonexistent. Biological challenge – all he has to do is just to follow his instinctive drives, in particular, the drive for self-preservation and survival. That’s all, nothing else. There’s no ideal. The ideal is to become something else, more than a biological being, but a unique being, equal to God. Man enters into this world as a little brute. However, he may depart from it as a great being. And to this ideal his life should be dedicated.

Or, for instance, I’ll give you another quotation. Zacha omrim lo ata kadamta lemalachei hasharet. Lo zacha omrim lo yatush kadamcha. Whenever man is worthy of his unique station in the universe he is congratulated upon his superiority to the angels in heaven. However, when he forfeits his worth, and he doesn’t meet his challenge boldly, he is advised that even the mosquito takes precedence over him, because Judaism thought, if man is great, he is greater than the angels; if he a low being, he is lower than the mosquito. He can rise very high; he can sink very low. The distance is almost endless. There are two opposite poles. Human life in Judaism swings, like a pendulum, oscillates between these two poles, the mosquito and the angel.

That man can rise to the heights of angels, you don’t need any proof. Just read a history of man. The fact of an Isaiah, of the prophets, would corroborate that. That man can sink to the level of a mosquito, or perhaps lower, it’s enough to quote a few known Nazi types – Goebels, Himmler, Hitler. This would corroborate, I mean, the Talmudic-Midrashic thesis. I don’t believe we can argue much about this fact.

However, […], the image of God, instead of being implanted in man, rises like a mysterious star in the distant heavens, and summons man to a heroic effort of reaching out for a world unknown and dimensions undreamed of. In experiencing his choiceness and singularity, according to Judaism, man cannot be filled with pride. If something is being given to him, he could be proud of this possession. Nothing is being given to him. It’s only a summons. Man is summoned to live greatly, magnificently, majestically, in a dignified manner, but the summons has to be, I mean – he’s summoned into this service at a great cost, but as long as he didn’t fulfill his duty, he cannot be proud. It fills man with responsibility and also a sense of humility, not pride, because there is a deep assurance. There is a deep assurance – if man is summoned, then he must be assured, because if he’s not assured, this summons is worthless. Jews knew that any ethical norm given to man, any moral law, any ideal imposed on him, or any vision opened up to him, must be accompanied by an assurance that he’s capable of achieving this ideal, realizing what is expected of him, and simply translating his dream into action. Otherwise, if there is no assurance, it’s […]

This is the trouble with Christianity. Christianity gave a morality but did not assure the Christian that he can realize morality, morality of, if one is slapped, he should turn the other cheek to the one who hit him. Judaism was a realistic religion. Judaism always said, no norm unless the norm is provided with an assurance. Man must be certain, or at least be hopeful of being able to cope with his task, with his […].

That’s why Judaism does not, in a manner reminiscent of Christian theology, speak of the fall of man. You know, Christianity speaks of the fall of man. When you speak of fall, I mean, already semantically, etymologically, when you say fall, one fell, you presuppose that before he fell, what happened? He was standing on some high plateau and fell down. It means adam, paradisical man – adam; it’s an archetype of man; it’s a symbol of man – paradisical man, before he sinned, before he rebelled against God – as the story in Genesis is told – so he was very high. That’s what Christian theologians, dating back to Paul, thought – very high. He was equal to God. How could Adam be equal to God? He had no opportunity to realize, so to say, the testament which was given to him by God. So apparently, Christian theologians thought that this choiceness of man is a datum. It was given to him. He didn’t have to work. He didn’t have to realize it. It was given. It’s a gift. It’s a bestowal of grace upon him. That’s why the idea of Grace is so prominent in Christian theology, and that’s why in Jewish thought Grace does not play such a prominent role, because Jewish thought wanted man to acquire whatever he is, not just to receive a gift. And the old saying in the Proverbs, vesonei matanot yichye, whoever hates gifts will live a long life, applies not only to the relationship between man and man, but also with regard to the relationship between man and God. Don’t receive gifts from God. Whatever you receive from him should be well earned.

So, of course, the greatest, bestowal of man, it means his uniqueness, his personal status, his singularity, should not be just received as a gift because God in his infinite grace is kind and benevolent to man, but man should earn his way. So Adam had no chance to stand on a high plateu, so that’s why we don’t speak of fall. There was no fall because he was not distinct yet. He was trying, Adam, to achieve personality, to attain singularity, but the time was too short for him to realize this great ideal. This great ideal is endless. We speak more instead – Judaism – when Judaism speaks of the original sin – likes to think of the original sin in terms of man’s failure and frustrating experiences, of a rebellion which did not cause any fall, but simply frustrated his efforts in his determination to free himself from naturalness and from immediacy, and become an autonomous being. The original sin did not result in Adam’s fall from his transcendental unique position into an abyss of insensateness since Adam never reached existential heights, but it resulted, according to Judaism, in Adam’s loss of an opportunity to rise to a great existence, in his inability to meet a challenge, to behold a vision, and to stretch out his quivering hand for the almost absurd and impossible.

In a word, the biblical and Greek traditions agree that the task assigned to man is – what is the task? What is the ideal for man? [It] is self-realization. If you ask, what does Judaism require of man? – to realize a great ideal – yes, correct – or to meet the challenge, or to behold a vision and make a reality out of a dream, of that vision, of a hope – correct. But what is the hope? – to be unique. What did God grant him? – nothing but an opportunity. Where is the opportunity? – within himself. What is an opportunity? – potentiality. A hyle, as it is called by the Aristotelian word, a hyle – an opportunity, a challenge. So what is the challenge? – of self-realization. So, all Judaism wants of man is to realize himself – self-fulfillment and self-realization. In this regard, Judaism and classical thought are in full agreement.

Also,

[audience member:] […]

[the Rav:] I don’t know, that I don’t know. I don’t know.

However, ladies and gentlemen, the problem hasn’t been resolved yet. The question is, what does self-fulfillment mean? It’s […] a question of defining self-fulfillment. Here we can part company. We’ve perhaps been good company until now, but we may part company and violently disagree when it comes to spelling out what self-fulfillment and self-realization is.

But by self-realizing, man actually creates himself in the image of God. So actually, Judaism says, God created just an opportunity for man, but man, in order to be a being who carries the image of God – he must create himself. The image of God is created by man. That’s exactly what Judaism insists. And that’s why Judaism basically is an articulate, very dynamic, in many respects, and aggressive religion. I mean, in Judaism, such theories as Christian science could have never been, so to say, developed, because Christian science means whatever man is, he has to experience it in a passive role, even the question of healing – we should not intervene in natural processes, should not interfere with God. If God – sickness is an expression of a certain disproportionate arrangement within the personality, but however, by having faith in Christ or in God, so man can attain a cure. I mean, I’m not speaking now from a medical viewpoint alone, whether this theory makes sense or doesn’t make any sense, but from a philosophical viewpoint – it means man is a passive being. All he is – he is on the receiving end, so to speak. He receives. He cannot earn anything, because he’s so corrupt, and he’s so worthless, and he’s lazy, that he cannot earn his way. He’s on the receiving end. It’s grace, grace, and grace, and grace, kindness, benevolence. And Judaism proclaims, v’rapoh y’rapeh, and he should heal the sick. Man should heal the sick. So it means, no – intervene in the works of God. I created you not just as a receiver, as a creature, as a worthless, so to say, creature who is incapable of managing its own affairs, but as a creative being. I want you to be creative. Join me in the process of creation, and improve the works of God.

Creativity is a great ideal in Judaism – to improve the works of God. God somehow did not finish the world. The universe, creation, is an unfinished product, […] not being completed. It is man’s job to complete the works of God. To become, as the Talmudic scholars say, shutaf lakadosh baruch hu bema’aseh breishit, to become a partner of God, with regard to the emergence and perfecting of the universe. This is exactly what Judaism is. It’s an active religion.

Of course, the first task before he starts out to recreate or change the environment – his first task is to create himself, and creating himself means in the image of God. The image of God is to Judaism not a promise – […] a duty, but not a gift. Yeah.

As far as this is concerned, the classical and biblical traditions agree, first of all, that man is distinct, and his distinctness is not a factum, but a challenge, and he himself has to bring it about – but I said there is a violent disagreement, too, between them.

The role of man’s intellect

The classical and biblical traditions also concur in their singling out of the reason as the most powerful instrument of man in his attempt to achieve self-fulfillment and self-realization.

All you have to do is just open now Maimonides, page 14, and read the last paragraph. Maimonides describes in the last paragraph – the last paragraph deals with the Hebrew word of tzelem. Tzelem means image of God. What does it mean, image of God? – because to the naive person, the word image suggests corporeality of God, or some philosophy of anthropomorphism, that is, if God had a body. That’s what Maimonides tries to explain, that tzelem is not to be interpreted in anthropomorphic terms, but in spiritual categories. So, in the end, I would recommend to you the reading of this chapter, and the second one:

“As man’s distinction consists in a property which no other creature on earth possesses,”

And what is this property? Nothing else – the intellect, the reason.

“[viz.,] intellectual perception. In the exercise of which he does not employ his senses, nor move his hand or his foot, this perception has been compared – though only apparently, not in truth – to the Divine perception which requires no corporeal organ.”

It means abstract thinking – what it means – not sensuous perception. You see, the animal, [says] Maimonides, can also see this glass of water; I can realize somehow that this is water, by instinctive thought, by instinctive drive, and also feel an instinctive drive to drink out of this water, but the animal cannot speak, for instance, about the glass of water in abstract terms; this is a body; this body is extended in space; this body, this water is a liquid; the glass is solid – I mean, the scientific terms. [It] cannot formulate its sense experiences in abstract scientific terms, and man was endowed with the ability of formulating his sense experiences in abstract scientific terms.

“On this account, [i.e.,] on account of the Divine intellect with which man has been endowed, he is said to have been made in the form and likeness of the Almighty, but far from it be the notion that the Supreme Being is corporeal, having a material form.”

This is the quintessence of the first chapter. So, the first impression is that Maimonides agrees with the Greeks, that – why is man distinct? What does his distinctness consist of? – in the intellect.

We will see that Maimonides was wrong in this regard, completely wrong. I hate to say it about Maimonides, but we have to be a bit articulate and bold, because if you want to get to the root of Jewish thought – he was wrong, simply; he was revolving or moving in the Greek orbit, in the classical orbit. Many times – you know, each generation has its own jargon, its own jargon, philosophical jargon. The Germans used to use the Kantian jargon, the Americans use, I mean, William James or Dewey’s jargon, certain positivist jargon. Maimonides used the jargon of the Aristotelian Platonic school, and it’s hard to free yourself from certain cliches, or platitudes, or some notions and concepts which are popular, and so popular in a certain cultural society, within a certain cultural orbit.

But anyway, Maimonides agrees fully in singling out the reason as the most powerful instrument of man. And while I wrote out yesterday this lecture, I did not say that Judaism agrees with Greek philosophy that the reason is the element which brings about the singularity of man. I say they agree that reason is the most powerful instrument of man in his attempt to achieve self-fulfillment. This is true. I’ll go along with Maimonides as far as that, that reason is a powerful instrument – yes – but the question [is], is it only [a] powerful instrument, which serves another end, or, reason is the element which brings about man’s distinctness? The Greeks will say, yes, reason is the element. This is the criterion of distinction. This is the demarcation line. The brute world of brute creatures has no intellectual capacity; man has intellectual capacity. Here is the demarcation line. Maimondes, perhaps, will also agree with that. And as we’ll develop our theme, we’ll see that Judaism does not agree. Judaism rather violently disagrees with this thesis, but, however, as to [the] question of instrumentality, Judaism is prepared to accept the Greek thesis that the intellect is a powerful instrument. Man would have never been able to rise to the heights of a meaningful life if he were not endowed with the capacity for and special skill of grasping, comprehending, interpreting himself and his environment. No doubt about that.

Greek philosophy is logos-centric – logos is reason […] – logos-centric. What is man? – logos. What’s important for man? – to engage [in] intellectual activity. The rational activity was looked upon by the old philosophers of antiquity, of Hellas, of Greece, as the worthiest occupation, and very often did the classical thinkers engage in adoration and worshipping of the intellectual greatness of man to the point of deification, deification of the intellect, singing the praise in tones of religious ecstasy and passionate adoration. To Aristotle – it’s an ethical problem, you see – if the distinctive element in man is the intellect, so it means, what is the highest ideal to be pursued? What is the worthiest occupation to engage [in]? What is actually the highest norm, the supreme norm, the highest moral law? The answer is simple. Since the highest law would command man to realize himself – what does self-realization mean? – distinctness, uniqueness – and since the distinctive element is reason – so it means the highest norm would tell man, or would challenge man to develop his reason. So theoretical occupation would be considered as the highest form of realization of the ethical norm. The worthiest engagement pursued is simply to understand. This is what the Greeks say. That’s why Aristotle spoke of bios theoretikos, of a theoretical life, the life of the philosophers. This would be, I mean, the ethical consequences of such a metaphysic of man – that man’s metaphysic[al] distinctness expresses itself in the intellect.

You understand, you know very well, that Judaism could not go along [with that]. To say that the theoretical activity – however important, however great, however powerful, immense [an] advancement [it] is, [it] cannot be considered the worthiest activity. If this were the case, if Judaism could subscribe to such a thesis, there would be no need for the prophets to come and to preach to us a different idea. You could accept Plato and Aristotle and dispense with the Bible. The whole Bible revolves about a different kind of norm, not the intellectual activity. It’s an important activity, it’s an important engagement, it’s very relevant to man, it’s a powerful instrument, everything – right, yes – and man should engage in it, but only as a means, not as an end in itself.

Here is the big gap which separates – the wide, so to say, gulf – which separates Judaism from the Greek philosophy. I mean, this is both halakhic Judaism, Aggadic Judaism, Hasidism, any brand of Judaism. If asked – what is the highest norm in man’s life? What is the most precious, cherished ethical principle? What is the moral law? – or, using a Kantian expression – the categorical imperative? We would not answer like Aristotle, intellectual activity. We would give another answer, but this answer I wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t betray now, because I’ll be out of a job, I mean. This is a problem which we’ll have to, I mean, to solve. [Note: The Rav addresses this question next lecture. – ed.]

The Jewish tradition has also paid tribute to the rational nature of man, no doubt. When God asks Solomon – let us see – do Jews – I mean, I made a statement, and any statement should be proven. Don’t take statements at face value; always ask for proof when people speak about Judaism. This is the trouble; sometimes a rabbi comes and speaks about Judaism and people, laymen, take his statements for granted. Never believe; never have any confidence in a rabbi, because Judaism, it’s a very vague – our philosophy is vague; you have to check and recheck like a scientist in the laboratory, whether what we say, what we want to formulate is correct, or it’s just a figment of our imagination. So now we said – Judaism would not consider intellectual activity as the highest form of human engagement, yes. However, intellectual activity is very important in Judaism. It’s a powerful instrument, but an instrument leading to the realization of a different goal. Correct, yes. Now let me prove that Judaism in general thought that intellectual activity is a very important activity, although not placing it on the highest level, and not making out of the intellectual norm the highest moral law.

For instance, when God asks Solomon, in the Bible – when God asks Solomon – do you have a Bible here? Would you give it to me? English – which text? Second Samuel, Melachim, First Kings… Yes, yes, yes. Would you – it’s first Kings – just a moment – it’s page 406 – if someone has a Bible, page 406, First Kings. Yes.

“And the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said, And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father, and I am but a little child; I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give thy servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to judge these, thy great people?”

So what did David, I mean Solomon, ask? – for knowledge, for understanding, for a discriminating judgment, for intellectual excellence; how to judge, how to guide, how to govern these people.  A discerning and discriminating judgment can be asked for theoretical purposes by the scientist, and also for practical political purposes by the politician and king and ruler.

“And,” the Bible tells us, “and the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to thy word. I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, so that there has been none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”

I mean, the old saying – that Solomon was the wisest among men. You saw that, apparently, the intellectual excellence is a very important property and trait in man. Otherwise, Solomon wouldn’t have asked for that, and God wouldn’t have sanctioned this request as a very wise choice.

Now, it’s very interesting that this is perhaps the reason for the preference given to the petition for understanding, knowledge, and wisdom within the silent prayer of the eighteen blessings, what we call shemoneh esrei. You know, the silent prayer of the shemoneh esrei – it’s not eighteen actually, it’s nineteen blessings now, but the original prayer had eighteen; that’s why we call it shemoneh esrei. The silent prayer is divided into three parts. The first part is the introductory blessings, which deal simply with introducing man to God. Man introduces himself to God and adores God as great, powerful, particularly merciful. Then, the middle part is concerned with the petitional prayers, or intercessory prayers. It means, we simply ask God [that] He should gratify our basic needs. For instance, we ask Him [that] He should forgive our sins, He should heal the sick, He should bless mankind with economic prosperity. Then we have the national prayers, ingathering of the exiles, the rebuild[ing], restoration of Zion, and so forth. What’s interesting is that the first prayer of the middle part – of the petitionary prayers, of the intercessory prayers – begins, ata chonen la’adam da’at, You have bestowed knowledge and intellect upon man; umelamed le’enosh binah, You teach man how to understand; you ask God, choneinu me’itecha deiah binah vehaskel, just grant us understanding, discrimination, and good judgment. And you conclude the prayer, baruch ata Adoshem chonen hada’at, blessed be Thou, Who bestows upon man knowledge and understanding. [This is] the first prayer.

This is very indicative. It’s perhaps more indicative than the passage of the Bible, because the prayers were very carefully formulated and cautiously chosen; and [that] this petition, the petition for understanding – not for the absolution of sins, not for a pure heart, not for economic prosperity, not for health, and not for national revival and redemption, but for knowledge – opens up the middle part of the intercessory prayers, indicates that man has no right to ask for anything unless he’s assured of knowledge and wisdom. The supplication dealing with man’s urgent need for knowledge ushers the worshipper into the silent prayer. Apparently, one must not address any petition to God unless he was assured that the most basic need is going to be gratified, and the basic need is the one for knowledge. This is correct.

However – up to here, Judaism would walk hand in hand, arm in arm – I would say Isaiah would walk arm in arm with Plato and Socrates. They never met. The legend is that Plato has met – when he was in Egypt – he met a disciple of Jeremiah, Baruch ben Neiriyah, son of Neiriyah. It’s a little – it’s a bit anachronistic, but I’m inclined to believe – and I’m not a chauvinist, I want you to know; I don’t believe that we gave the world everything the world has; we didn’t give the world mathematics, nor did we give physics to the world. It’s ridiculous. Some rabbis begin to simply become ecstatic, almost ecstatic, about speaking [about] the contributions the Jewish people made to general culture. It’s not true. We made great contributions, but in certain fields. Of course, our contribution is in the field of religion and ethics, no doubt about that – and I believe, I firmly believe, that Plato, while he was in Egypt, met some Jews of the Babylonian so-called exiles from Zion, or immigrants from Palestine, still of the First Commonwealth, and he certainly had long conversations with them, and he certainly learned a lot from them, and many passages in Plato, which somehow, somehow suggest to us that Isaiah and Pla[to] – and Isaiah, I would say Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or any prophet – knew each other, and discussed the topics, because they give identical answers – […] were influenced by prophetic thought. Of course, you know, in the Eleventh Letter, Plato says that I was in Egypt, and I learned from all Oriental scholars whatever I could learn. He himself concedes that he owes a debt of gratitude to Oriental wisdom. And of course, Egypt at that time abounded in Jewish scholarship and wisdom. I mean, the communication between Palestine and Egypt, it was so – the communication of ideas and thoughts, and actual exchange of information, and simply – in terms of travel – was so alive that there’s no doubt that he met Jewish scholars. Of course, German scholars, because of anti-Semitic inclinations, declared this letter to be not genuine, but a forgery. They could not tolerate the thought that the Aryan Plato has learned something from Semites – as they did with regard to the Bible; they said, the Bible, on the contrary, we owe a debt to Babylonia, or Assyria, or anybody else for the basic ideas of the Bible. But anyway, there is no doubt that there is some common element between the prophets and Platonic thought; there is no doubt about it. But up to here they disagree. Man is distinct; distinctness is a challenge; and the reason is a powerful instrument.

Greek universalization of man

Now let’s see. Judaism, if I may say so, placed itself in opposition to the classical theory of man mainly with regard to two basic issues. First, with respect to the problem – it’s important, although it’s not a central problem, but it’s important in order to get a better understanding of Jewish philosophy of man – with respect to the problem of man versus mankind, man versus community, or man versus society, there are two disparate, incommensurable approaches – the Greeks and the Jews. Second, relative to our problem, to the problem of logo-centricity, whether man must be logocentric, or he should revolve about a higher ideal than the intellectual excellence. Let me explain these two issues. I’ll start with a side issue, but this side issue – the question of man versus community, man versus society, man as a representative of mankind, or individual man representing universal man – this will cast a light upon the Jewish approach to man, even with regard to the problem of intellectual activity.

When the Greeks philosophized about the fate and destiny of man, they always thought in terms of universality. In other words, what aroused their curiosity and inquisitiveness was not single man – no – not lonely man, not man for himself, not the individual. Somehow the Greeks never saw the individual – it’s strange – but man as a spokesman for his class, for his species, or, as they called this, the genus, or mankind. When they speak of man is not man; it is always the collective – mankind.

Basically the Greeks – after all, democracy – it’s very funny; we can’t understand it – democracy was developed among Greeks, and Greeks, in their approach to man, adopted the philosophy of the corporate state – no individual man, no man for himself, no lonely man – they didn’t see him, simply – but man – when they said man, you can’t speak of mankind, so […] they speak of man – but man as a representative of mankind or of society. Man, always, when they spoke of man, is not the particular man, but man anonymous, means man – any man – the archetype – nothing to do with the archetypes in Jung, but archetype – the symbol, the idea, or what they call it, the morphe, the form – form was an idea, an ideal – fascinated the minds of old Greece, old Hellas. Since Socrates and Plato, they kept on asking one question – not, what is concrete man? – somehow the abstract philosophers, Greek philosophers, did not ask what is concrete man; never mind what man should be; what is he? – but what are the conceptual morphological patterns of man, in abstract, of man in general, of the universal type, the representative of mankind?

They never somehow saw the individual, the lonely person, who did not integrate himself into and refused to serve the crowd, somehow. They never saw man who leads not a standardized and fixed, but a non-conforming and strange, life. When they spoke of man, it’s man conforming, man standardized, man whose life is fixed, rigid – whose life is rigid – rigid, of course, fashioned after certain general patterns. In a word, they overlooked the individual […]. There’s no individual, basically, per se. Only when the individual life is dovetailed with the concerns and pursuits of universal man, it may find meaning and, ultimately, existential worth – only then – if he’s a servant of mankind – cannot serve himself. The individual existence is the medium through which the species or the genus or the class asserts itself.

Of course, ladies and gentleman – the problem of procreation – if the species wants to survive, it cannot survive by itself, as an abstract entity. It has to use, employ the individuals as instruments, as tools which make survival and self-preservation possible. Otherwise it’s impossible. So, of course, all man has to do is to make himself available to the universal man – all lowly man has to do – to mankind, and place himself at the disposal of the latter. Procreation, for instance, through which the class or the species perpetuates itself, is only possible if the individual is ready to accept a universal commitment and look upon himself as the instrument of some higher ontic order. What is the higher order than the individual? – mankind, or man in abstract, the concept of man – or call it how it – even if you may introduce this nice name, it doesn’t say, I think – humanity – although we distinguish between humanity and mankind, but to me it doesn’t say much – it depends how the individual man is treated.

If the individual is incapable or unwilling to conform with the interests of society – either-or – incapable of, or unwilling to, conform with the interests of society – he forfeits his legitimate claims to existence. You know very well that in Sparta – of course, Sparta is not characteristic of Greece, but, still, it was a part of the Greek people – they used to kill retarded and sick children. This is very indicative. Even later – of course, they are primitive, and later you wouldn’t find it in the Greek literature, particularly in the philosophical literature – but this approach governs Greek thought from Thales down to the Stoa. […]

In a word, the Greek philosophy wanted man to live, act, and create, not along individual patterns, but along universal patterns, and in compliance with the rigid standards which universal man has discovered and set up for himself. It came to almost an absurd expression in the Roman positive law system. You know what law meant to the Romans – something which is unchangeable, unalterable, something fixed and rigid, and that’s all. What is the law, the positive Roman law? It’s nothing else but the will of, not of individual man, but universal man, man as such. Otherwise, the individual exists rightfully only then, when he enjoys the grace of a higher universal form of existence, when universal man bestows upon him kindness and benevolence. Otherwise, he will end up in thwartings, frustrations, and complete existential failure. This was the Greek theory.

What is interesting is, not so much the idea, as the similes they used to illustrate this idea. Many picturesque similes were employed to illustrate this philosophy – this philosophy of, I would say, class absolutism, or society absolutism, or the absolutism of the universal. For instance, one simile was the tree that bursts forth into blossoms in the spring and sheds its foliage in the autumn. Who is concerned with the individual leaf, tossed by the storm in a dark autumn night, which lives as long as it was nourished by the sap of the tree? As soon as the supply was discontinued, it withered and died and fell off the tree. Who is concerned?

Or, they used to introduce another simile, the mighty ocean, which contains an almost infinite number of water particles. Who would care about a single drop of water within this endless reservoir? The fate of the lonely leaf tossed by the storm in the autumn, while the tree from which it fell is accumulating fruit for next spring, when it will burst forth into new blossoms, and the fate of the isolated drop of water absorbed by the sand on the beach, while the roar of the onrushing tide of the ocean manifests itself in force and might, is very typical of the destiny of the individual who detached himself from society, from mankind. Who cares about a single leaf? Who cares about a single drop of water? Who cares about a single individual?

Interesting is, how this philosophy somehow slipped into religion. I wouldn’t say [the] Jewish religion, but what is said among Jews who seem to have adopted this philosophy.

This philosophy, I’ll show you later, has tremendous ethical complications in terms of social service, you see. But now we are not speaking about… You want to ask me a question? Yes, sir.

[audience member:] […]

[the Rav:] It’s a very hard question. It’s a very hard question. Basically, the Greeks knew of democracy, but they knew nothing about the dignity of the individual. You see, our brand of democracy, the American brand, which is based on the Lex Naturae, developed – I mean, of course, not developed; it was developed by the Stoa; but later, of course, I mean, formulated and reinterpreted by the English positivistic philosophers and by the French, by the age of reason, by the philosophers of the age of reason – bases democracy upon the dignity of the individual. Actually, the Declaration of Independence combines democracy with the inherent rights, not in mankind, but in the individual. The Greeks – I’ll show you, this is a Jewish concept – the Greeks somehow – it is a marvel, actually, it’s a problem – they knew of political democracy, or rule of the crowd, so to say – it was not democracy […], it was demos, the crowd, rule of the crowd, you see, it isn’t – basically, democracy is not the proper word to describe the form of government which should serve the individual – yes? – because democracy means rule of the crowd. It’s the crowd more than the individual. And the consequence, since the king is an individual – that’s how the mind works in opposite directions – since the king is only individual, what right does he have to determine the fate and destiny of the crowd, of mankind, of society? So, they say democracy; [it] means the rule of the crowd, but not individual. The crowd does not serve the individual. The crowd serves itself, its own interests. Sometimes the idea is identified with basic principles, and, actually, if we pursue the development of the idea, we see that our categories are not applicable when we want to approach the origins, I mean the biography of this idea.

Now, interesting is that the religious philosophers somehow, in the Middle Ages, revolved in the classical orbit, arrived at a very queer conclusion respecting divine providence, what we call hashgacha, divine providence. They maintain that God is concerned only with the destiny of man in general; however, He is completely indifferent to the individual as an autonomous entity. The latter is not under the management, government, and rule of God. He and his destiny was abandoned and left exposed to mechanical, insensate forces, to changes and vicissitudes, and to chance and coincidence. That’s right. I take sick? – not God’s concern. I should pray to God when I’m sick? – no. Prayers only can be addressed to God if they deal with the good of the community, or the good of mankind. Who are you to address yourself to God? You are worthless; you are simply – your existence is irrelevant. It’s not even a legitimate existence. It’s somehow – my existence, if I don’t serve society, is like, it’s stolen, and I’m a receiver of stolen goods, somehow. Only insofar as the single person contributes toward the preservation and advancement of the species, the former is under divine rule and guidance.

I’ll ask you to open now the Guide. Maimonides knows of this theory; he fought against it. It is [the] third section, third section of the Guide. The Guide is divided into three sections, and it is chapter – just a moment, it goes on here – third section, chapter 17 – seventeenth chapter. Just a moment – third section – yes – chapter 17 – […] page 282. I would ask you to read this chapter, because here you find a reflection of Greek thinking and a reflection of Jewish opposition to Greek thinking – how Maimonides encountered this problem, in spite of the fact that he was a devote…a devoted…he was so devoted to Aristotle, and he thought Aristotle actually has achieved the greatest heights in philosophy and science, but still he parts company with Aristotle; as a Jew he could not accept it.

Now, yes. “There are four different theories…” at the beginning of the chapter.

“There are four different theories concerning divine providence. They are all ancient; known since the time of the Prophets, when the true law was revealed to enlighten these dark regions.”

So you he already tries to contrast the prophets with Aristotle. Now, I mean, I cannot read everything – the third, just a moment. Yes. Just a moment – one part – yes – the second theory.

“Whilst one part of the Universe owes its existence to Providence, and is under the control of a ruler and governor, another part is abandoned and left to chance.”

Now, what part is under the rule of God, and what part is abandoned and left to chance? You understand? – the universal, so to say, patterns in being, the kind, the classes, the genera, the species; mankind, and also the animal, the classes of the species, the various species of animals, are also under divine guidance and rule. Man is not – has no unique station. He’s only – he’s important as a representative of his species, not important as an individual.

“This is the view of Aristotle about Providence.”

Of course, when Aristotle spoke of providence, he didn’t mean it in theological terms. The Aristotelian concept of providence is something different, but Maimonides somehow introduced – the later Arabic philosophers, I mean, read in to Aristotle theological thoughts. But:

“I will now explain to you this theory. He holds that God controls the spheres,” of course, the heavens have a separate status, “and what they contain: therefore the individual beings in the spheres remain permanently in the same form.”

It means the angels, so to say, the spiritual beings. Spiritual beings are important.

But however, he goes on; you’ll take 283 – I’ll ask you to read it.

“All other movements, however, which are made by the individual members of each species are due to accident; they are not, according to Aristotle, the result of rule and management; [e.g.,] when a storm or gale blows, it causes undoubtedly some leaves of a tree to drop,…”

You see again the simile of the leaf, the simile of the leaf which repeated itself throughout antiquity and the middle ages.

“…breaks off some branches of another tree, tears away a stone from a heap of stones, raises dust over herbs and spoils them, and stirs up the sea so that a ship goes down with the whole or part of her contents. Aristotle sees no difference between the falling of a leaf…”

This is very important, as Maimonides says, and he formulates it wonderfully.

“…between the falling of a leaf or a stone and the death of the good and noble people in the ship;…”

It is the same irrelevant, significant event, whether a stone falls down or a leaf is torn off the tree, or a great man […] individual who dies on the ship that is capsized.

“…nor does he distinguish between the destruction of a multitude of ants caused by an ox depositing on them his excrement, and the death of worshippers killed by the fall of the house when its foundations give way;…”

There’s no difference if 90 children are killed in a fire in Chicago, or a heap of ants killed by the, because an ox, actually, stepped on this heap, on this pile.

“…nor does it discriminate between the case of a cat killing a mouse that happens to come in her way, or that of a spider catching a fly, and that of a hungry lion meeting a prophet and tearing him.”

Beautifully formulated – this is exactly – you see what I said, I mean, its correct – please read the chapter […] the whole chapter.

Of course this disdainful attitude the Greeks adopted with regard to the individual is in keeping with their ontology and with their philosophy of Being in general. Let us remember that the classical mind approached reality – I’ll just give you a short survey of the background – under a dual aspect. Namely, there is in life, or in existence, contingency and necessity. That’s […]. There is something accidental and something [t]hat is lawful. There is chaos and order. The Greeks didn’t believe that everything is arranged in an orderly fashion. The universe as such – it is heterogeneous, consisting of unorganized, individual, incidental matter eluding the grasp of the intellect, since it is basically non-intelligible, and this, which is individual – Plato had a good word for it, for the individual – he called [it] meon; whoever knows Greek, meon means “half-being,” “semi-being,” not a full being, not important, meon – it’s nothing. But – the kind is in Plato ontos on, “being-being.” It’s funny, you see, you take “being” both as an adjective and as a noun. It’s hard to translate into another language – ontos on. It is true being, but the individual is meon, almost being, meon; it means half-being, semi-being, a shadow. He spoke of shadows. You know the story, I mean the scene about the cave, in The Republic – mankind casts his shadow; and who is the shadow of mankind? – the individual. So who cares if this shadow disappears? – another shadow, no doubt. This is [it] exactly.

If this is true about the entire order of events, it’s also relevant, the Greeks thought, as regards man. The individual is just incidental, transient, ephemeral, a passing event, a whim – it’s a whim, it’s a caprice, a whim – through which the class or mankind activates and maintains itself, but if not this whim, some other whim will come along. If a single person understands his task and position in the universe and makes an effort to fulfill his mission to which he is committed as a representative of mankind – it means to serve mankind – his existence is a legitimate one. It means, he’s still meon, half-shadow, half-being, but it’s a legitimate meon. He cannot ever become ontos on. Ontos on is a title which is conferred only on mankind – not only mankind – on any species – on the general order, not on the individual order. If he fails to realize this particular role assigned to him by nature, he simply loses his ontic license, I mean the license to exist, the right to live and to exist.

Of course, I present it in very brutal terms, but, more or less, we are well acquainted with Greek philosophy of this period, know that […] Maimonides.

Practical implications of the Greek theory for social service

Now, the implications of this theory, of class absolutism, are enormous – I’m speaking of practical implications, in terms of social philosophy and social service – are enormous, and I am coming to it because I don’t believe this theory is completely passé. There is a bit of this theory which somehow is implanted in each one of us, and particularly in certain social systems, it is perhaps the center of social activity and social service. That’s why I’m taking it up. I’m a little departing from this philosophical analysis.

The implications of this theory of class absolutism are enormous, if we try to translate this doctrine in terms and categories of social philosophy and service. I mean, in order – I want to picture a social service which would be fashioned after this philosophy of man in order to understand what Judaism had accomplished. You know, always, colors are only identified by contrast. If there is no contrast, you cannot appreciate anything. And this method of contrasting Judaism with Hellenistic thought which was very abstract and very […] philosophy in order to emphasize what Judaism has accomplished for modern man.

Not mincing too many words and not wasting any phrases, we may state in terse terms that according to the classical tradition the worth of the individual is measured by his usefulness to society. That’s all. That’s dispensing all this metaphysical phraseology. See? An individual is worth – the worth of an individual, the dignity, is measured by his usefulness to society.

We should not ask – the question actually we should not ask – what is man for himself? It’s a foolish question […]. Who cares about him? What is his intrinsic worth, his inherent valuableness? Simply, it’s an absurd question, an absurdity – but what can man do as a representative of mankind? How can he serve best his class, the species? How can the shadow, the meon serve best the ontos on, the true being, some exalted god who was enthroned by the Greeks? – and this exalted god was mankind.

You will see this reflection in philosophies of corporate states. It’s differently formulated, differently worded, but it’s the same idea.

His existential station is determined by his accomplishments for the good of the class. The external activity, the arrogant, dynamic hands – [by] the hands, I understand, I mean, his external activity – man, arrogant man, who can step out of himself and engage in external activity – and not his modest but fine-feeling soul, the hidden inner life – determine the worth of the persona. His hand […], not his soul. His intellect is capable of achievements, not the heart; what he accomplishes, not what he is. The man who is active, not man who has been frustrated, for no fault of his. Axiologically man is measured by his work. It’s an equation, like a mathematical equation. Man equals the amount of work, or the amount, I mean, the number of achievements or accomplishments, he can deliver to society.

Of course, you’ll ask me – I’ll refer to your question again – what about equality? After all, democracy is based upon the idea of égalité, of equality – [it] is a basic category in our political and social thinking, and it also was a basic category in the Greek thinking, égalité. In fact, the French Revolution did not accomplish much by espousing the cause of égalité. I mean, it was known to the Greeks before that.

But, however, when we speak about equality, we have to distinguish between three kinds of equality – and here we make a big mistake – yet, when we speak of equality, we must distinguish between three different forms of the basic democratic principle, of this […].

First of all, political equality. It means, in other words – it’s equality before the law, and also the state, or society, or community affords equal opportunity and protection to everyone. Correct? It’s equality – political equality means equality of opportunity – not only equality of walking into the election booth and casting my ballot – this is just one of the expressions of equality of opportunity. It means equal opportunity – democratic – education, public school system, so forth and so on.

Second, economic equality. Of course, equal sharing in the goods which man produces – this is socialism. Socialism also considers itself a democracy. You know, they speak of a people’s democracy, and they always say that while Western democracies are committed to political equality, they are committed not to political, but to economic [equality]. Of course, they say that they are committed to political equality as a whole. All right, if you want to believe it, okay.

Third, third, third – and this is this type of equality which Dewey didn’t know, and I don’t think anybody knows: axiological equality. What does it mean, axiological? It means equality as to worth of man, as to valuable-ness of man. Axiological means equality as to value.

The attribution of equal worth and value to all individuals, notwithstanding the fact that their contributions to the well-being and the welfare of the community or society may widely differ – this is a great idea. Greece didn’t [know it]. How can you treat on par Aristotle with the shoemaker? How can you treat on par Socrates with a slave? After all Greece was a slave economy, was based on a slave economy. The barbarian and the Hellenic type, the Greek, couldn’t, the best minds among them, couldn’t imagine this type of equality.

That – it is quite paradoxical that in a society – let us take our own society, the Western society, which – in which, whose form of government is democratic, the individual is not treated socially in conformity with the inner worth and dignity bestowed upon him by the Creator and the hour of creation, but according to his usefulness in society. Willy-nilly you must admit that. In our approach to man – I cannot help myself. When I’ll come speak to the President of the United States, I’ll be mentally – my mental disposition will be different from when I address myself to the grocery boy. Why? It’s a question – I measure – let’s be very, very frank about ourselves – because apparently, we, not revere – but at least the President of the United States commands our respect; the grocery boy who works for $8 a day or $10 a day does not command our respect. We are not disturbed. We are not so very excited, but we’ll be quite excited to have an appointment with the President of the United States. What does it mean? In ethical terms, it means that we attribute more worth – because of the office, or because of the personality of the President of the United States – I don’t care about this – it depends on the President of the United States – yes, but we attribute more worth, greater value, to the President, or to the great scientist, the great engineer, the great surgeon, to anybody who is prominent in society. Who is prominent in society? [One] who contributed something towards the well-being and advancement of society – at any level, scientific level, economic level, [a] great manufacturer; but when you speak to an ordinary person or to a beggar on the street, we wouldn’t treat him on par. Let’s not fool ourselves; the hypocrisy would be something Judaism hated the most.

So it means axiologically we differentiate between people. Do we know the intrinsic worth of the President of the United States or of the grocery boy? Perhaps the grocery boy has soul-movements and stirrings, very tender stirrings within his, so to say, awareness. A fine-feeling heart is by far superior to the President of the United States. Apparently we don’t compare the intrinsic worth of the grocery boy with that of the President of the United States, but our comparison is at the level of one’s usefulness. Of course the President is more useful than the grocery boy. Sometimes we think that the President is almost indispensable. People used to think about Roosevelt [like that]. Alright, and even if the President is dispensable and quite replaceable, we still attribute to him a greater measure of usefulness than to the grocery boy or to the servant.

Is this axiological democracy? – no – let’s be honest with ourselves – under no circumstances, ladies and gentlemen. It means – this idea we have never achieved – and basically – this is what the Greeks preached – there is no axiological democracy, because the individual himself is nothing. You consider him only in the light of his service to society, to mankind. Of course, if the determining factor is service, so whoever gives more service is worthier than the one who gives less service.

Now, in countries – of course, I’m speaking now about Western society – in countries where socialist attempts at economic equalization of man are made – I mean the communist society – of course, the individual has been stripped completely of his inward significance and relevance and turned into a servant of the community, an automaton, who is judged by his productive capacity. I mean, I don’t have to tell you that about Russia. I just want, I mean – what is perhaps new is that we ourselves are sinners in this regard. And you and I, somehow, instinctively, we react in a different manner when we meet a prominent person and when we meet an ordinary person.

As I said before, the practical consequences in terms of social service are almost staggering. Let us imagine a social service fashioned after this idea, after the ideal of meon and ontos on; man, servant of society; man, half-shadow, half-being, servant of the community.

Now, let me try – I may spell out in brutal terms, into ruthless terms, in absurd terms, but nevertheless, the terms will reflect the very essence of a social service fashioned after such a philosophy of man. Social service basically – as I understand social service – basically denotes a moral relationship between the society and the individual. I mean, this is my own definition, [that] of a layman; please don’t criticize me – have a little sympathy with me. Suffer my mistakes and my ignorance. Social service basically denotes a moral relationship between society and the individual. And it commits the former, that means society, to help the person who is incapable for a variety of reasons – sometimes culpable reasons; not only when the person is innocent, but sometimes when he’s basically, I mean, himself – he involved himself in a situation in which he cannot extricate himself – for a variety of reasons – to take care of himself. If he is incapable of taking care of himself, society comes to his help. And this is what I understand of social service. Is this correct or wrong? I mean, I ask your opinion. More or less? Huh? All right. That’s all.

Such a description, a description of the role of social service would hardly fit into the classical philosophy of class absolutism. Absolutely not. The society owes the individual nothing. What do you mean, a moral relationship? If there’s a moral relationship between society and the individual, it means society is committed. It’s a commitment. So it means, ontos on – it’s a very funny expression – ontos on, true being, a legitimate being, is committed to what? To meon, to a shadow? Am I committed to my shadow? I’m not committed to my shadow. It’s ridiculous to say. […]. The latter’s task – on the contrary – the latter’s task is to serve the welfare and good of the class. His existence is just incidental, devoid of meaning or relevance. As long as he does not place himself at the disposal of the group, his worth is proportionate to his work for the latter. If he becomes incapacitated and unable to serve, then his life is worthless. We’re supposed to help him?

Actually, if we are very consistent, there is no social service within such a society. Why should society care for him? As a matter of fact, the classical society knew nothing of social service. In general, they did not grasp the idea of charity, tzedakah, or loving-kindness, etc. Neither Plato nor Aristotle nor the Stoics – it’s interesting, in order to appreciate what Judaism had accomplished – nor the Stoics have included these virtues among the desirable qualities of a moral personality. They always spoke – when they spoke of the moral qualities – they spoke of justice, moderation, courage, orderliness, but never of goodness, never of long suffering, never of tzedakah. Never.

However, yet, if we should try, cautiously, to formulate the theory of social service which would fit into the classical anthropological framework of the ontos on and meon, we could begin with the following two premises, with the laying down of two premises.

First, society owes nothing, of course, to the individual. There is no moral relationship between society and the individual, but there is a relationship – instead of moral, a pragmatic one, a utilitarian relationship. Yes. Society, in order to protect its own interests, is duty-bound, for sheer pragmatic reasons – not morally, for sheer pragmatic reasons – to assist those individuals who, in spite of their temporary helplessness, can still be considered as potentially useful members of society, and capable of hearty, productive participation in the universal endeavor. Of course, a man takes sick, he is poor – but he serves society well – society will take care of him for one reason only, because when he’ll recover, after his convalescence, he will serve society again. This is not a moral relationship. It’s a pragmatic insight.

Secondly, we can stretch our imagination a bit more and say society, in a spirit of magnanimity and gratitude to its members who were – who rendered an important service to the group, extends help and condolence and consolation to them, even though their productive role was terminated for good, since they have made a substantial contribution to the advancement – towards public welfare. We can say the Greek may become very moral and also feel, so to say, qualms of conscience, as far as gratitude is concerned. Alright, an old – for instance, if Socrates became old – he died young because they killed him – but if Socrates were old, so the Greeks would put him in a home for the aged. Why? Who’s supposed to care about Socrates? He published his books – you know what – all you have to say [is it’s] an ordinary sense of gratitude. Basically, it would be a pragmatic relationship. Society supports the individual as long as the individual is useful to it.

However, even if we should introduce a moral aspect – we’ll say, yes, out of gratitude – it is, of course, self-evident that society feels by far more obligated with respect to the first class, the potential, to its potentially valuable members, than to the second one, to the has-beens – of course – however, great their accomplishments were. The utilitarian motif holds sway over that of appreciation of thankfulness […].

Now, what will happen? Let us see what kind of a social service could be developed along these lines, which is basically opposed to the Jewish ideal of social service. Let us examine a few hypothetical cases.

Useful members of society, of course, deserve better care than the average person – no doubt about it. If, for instance, an engineer working on an important technological project – let us say now, complying with the popular sentiment, on a missile project – we send a missile not only to the moon but to the sun or to some fixed star – okay. He is entitled to more expert medical care than a shoemaker or a taxi driver. I mean, let’s not fool ourselves. If they both take sick, suddenly, and an emergency operation were required, necessary, while there were only one surgeon, well, of course, the engineer would have priority over the anonymous Mr. X.

Is it only a hypothetical case or, actually, do we act like that? I wouldn’t say in such radical instances, but I’m afraid of this idea. It’s funny – when President Eisenhower took sick, so they brought [Dr.] Paul White from Boston, so many experts from this – yeah – but when a person enters the ward of the hospital, the resident physician or even the intern is good enough. Alright, sometimes, you know, certain things we practice, if we try to formulate them, they appear very awkward, very queer. That’s exactly what we are – the country, I, and everybody else.

The concern, for instance – [this is] something else – would be – this is already a problem – for instance, the concern of society for child welfare would be treated as of a higher social service order than the caring for the aged. They are both helpless. The child is helpless; the aged, of course, is helpless. What Judaism said about it, I don’t know yet; as far as this is concerned, you understand [what] the attitude of Isaiah would be – an engineer and a shoemaker take sick, an operation has to be performed, and the prominent person is given precedence, is given priority. You understand how Isaiah would express himself about it. But – this problem is a problem in Judaism too – but we are not now trying to describe the Jewish approach. We are still describing the classical approach to social service. Child care is superior to the care for the aged, for a simple reason. Of course, in a society which is dedicated to pragmatic interests, the individual as such, per se, does not play any role, but the individual is always judged in the light of his usefulness to society – of course, the child is a potential useful member of tomorrow, and the old man was a valuable servant of yesteryear. Of course, a valuable servant of tomorrow, and a valuable servant of yesterday – I mean, the question requires no attention at all. I say here I leave with a question mark what the Jewish attitude will be – for instance, allocation of funds, and this and that. This is a question, and we cannot just dismiss this.

Now, for instance, furthermore, we would discriminate between the gifted and the mediocre and dull children, and we would display a deeper sense of sympathy and understanding for the first, while we would not be so much preoccupied with the second type, with the dull children.

As to care needed for the retarded or problem children, society would not feel obligated at all. As a matter of fact, Sparta used to kill – Germany began to practice – Hitler had no time – he simply was put out of business – […] instead of having homes for the aged, to kill them off, little by little. […]. Of course, what can the group expect in form of service from an adult who will be burdened with a seven-year-old mentality?

As far as education is concerned, of course, society would offer the child not what is best for the child, but what would serve best its general interest. It would deny the boy or the girl an education which would realize certain, which would satisfy an inner need in the boy and the girl – for instance, the boy and girl are musically inclined – it would not educate them, train them as musicians, because they also have good skills, and as an engineer, they can serve society better than as a musician, in the capacity of a musician. It is done and practiced in Russia, you know? The dull child – we’re not dealing with a retarded child; I don’t know what they would do with a retarded child – but the dull child, or even the average child, has no opportunity. After completing his primary grades, he’s sent off to a factory, while the gifted child, particularly who has a slant for math, a technological slant, is offered unlimited opportunities. And this is not just arbitrary – we say it’s ruthless, it’s cruel – it’s not cruel; it fits into a beautiful philosophical framework.

Society would not treat all aged people equally. You know? It would build rest homes and retreats for those who distinguish themselves in their service, distinguish themselves with regard to society, and would disdainfully refuse to help the ones who did not merit the gratitude of society. Take [the situation] in Russia. There is always a home for aged literati, writers, for engineers, for doctors. I don’t know – do we have such homes in America? I doubt it. Why only for doctors? Why only for engineers? Why for writers? Why not for the average aged person? Society doesn’t owe anything to the average aged person, because he’s worthless – there is no intrinsic worth – as a servant of mankind. He is only a meon. If he makes himself valuable to be ontos on, he’s all right. The writer made himself valuable. […].

That such a concept of social service is possible and also can be practiced, and such standards may be set up for the formulation of practical policies, can be proven by observing many practices in our Western society – we are not perfect; we are far from it – and of course, the general institutions of social service in the communist countries. And here Judaism comes in. Alright, this will be next time.

End of lecture 3